The Monica Tapes

A different kind of look into Bill's mind appears in the tapes of Monica
Lewinsky's phone calls to Linda Tripp made during the last three months of
1997. These calls were recorded by Linda without Monica's knowledge for
Special Prosecutor Ken Starr and are a part of the evidence released by
the House Judiciary Committee on thirty seven tapes with a playing time of
twenty two hours. I listened to the tapes during a marathon broadcast on
KSFO in San Francisco from Friday to Sunday in November l998.

These tapes are a longer and more emotional version of Monica's testimony
before the grand jury. Through Monica's love, anger and depression we hear
about Bill and their failed relationship. No one altered Monica's oral
diary unlike the books written by Bill's friends which went through an
editorial process. Monica talked to Linda several times a day for over a
year but is on tape from October to December 1997 after she and Bill had
been lovers for eighteen months from November 1995 to May 1997. Bill's
other lovers, Gennifer and Dolly who told their stories in books had
longer relationships with Bill, twelve and thirty three years respectively
but their fantasies, activities and visits with Bill were not verified by
physical evidence, logs, witnesses, interrogations or tapes although there
were Gennifer-Bill telephone recordings made public in 1992.

After their affair was over, Monica remained in contact with Bill and
sought a job in New York where her mother lived. She didn't find a job she
wanted despite the help of UN Ambassador Bill Richardson and Bill's friend,
Vernon Jordan. Some of the phone conversations are about this job search.
Finally the demand of Paula Jones' attorneys for a deposition led to her
affidavit denying a sexual relationship with Bill. After being threatened
with a perjury charge by the Special Prosecutor, she negotiated immunity
from prosecution and then testified before a grand jury in August 1998. It
was reported in November 1998 that she was going to do a television
interview with Barbara Walters and write a book.

The hours of rambling dialogue are evocative of Handsome Bill as Monica
longs for a call from him, wants him to get her a job, plots to conceal
their relationship from deposition and is suspicious, angry and tearful.
The subject of this serious girl talk is mostly Monica in jokey and chatty
tones with threads about love, friends, hair, food, weight, moms, clothes
and travel. Monica's posture was naive and questioning while Linda was
tutorial about jobs and relationships. Monica's need for attention
interrupted Linda's television time so it is heard in the background. One
hears fragments of Linda's conversations with her cat and dog and sometimes
she talks to visitors. At times the calls interfered with Linda's meals so
the talk went on as she ate. They gossip about friends and coworkers whose
names are sometimes deleted. Expletives are censored. Monica's endurance on
the phone often exceeds Linda's bedtime so she pleads for sleep and signs
off.

Monica says Bill is "hiding" and wonders if "he stopped liking me" or if he
has a new relationship. She is obsessive about Bill and she speculates
wildly, "maybe he's on drugs" when he doesn't call back. At other times
Monica feels sabotaged by the White House staff in her efforts to reach
Bill with gifts, notes and an appointment. Anger and depression are heard
as Monica says that Bill "yelled at me... he scared me." Appointments with
Bill are made and broken. The emphasis shifts over time from her return to
a job at the White House to work in New York to get away from Washington
and to the private sector to get away from the government. Reality intrudes
at times when Linda says of Bill, "he's a guy" and Monica agrees. Linda's
judgment is that "he needs supervision" and they recall the role of Betsey
Wright who screened the women coming to Governor Bill's office in
Arkansas.

Linda was told to make the tapes by Lucienne Goldberg who said she should
to do this to protect herself from being "destroyed," that is called a liar
after she told the story of Bill's affair with Monica to Ken Starr. Linda
had a right wing orientation like the other conservative Republicans who
facilitated the Monica tapes, Lucienne Goldberg, Ken Starr and the Jones'
attorneys. Literary agent Goldberg said maybe Linda would get a book
contract for the story of the President's affair with Monica.

The relationship between Monica and Bill can be approached in terms of the
stereotypes. Monica is a material girl of the Madonna legend seeking fun
and connections, love and sex, success and fame, a Los Angeles vixen with
big hair, a big chest and a short skirt among the White House suits and
secretaries. Monica jokes about asking Bill for a position as the
President's special assistant for blow jobs and she wants them to run away
together. While in mourning for the lost Bill, she has an affair with "a
nutrition guy" at at a fat farm mentioned in the tabloid press and she
notices that Vernon Jordan is "quite the ladies' man."

Bill fits the errant husband formula, a horny fifty who seeks sexual
conquests with charm and explanations about his need for love. Like a
country western ballad, Bill tells Monica as he had told Gennifer and
Dolly about his loveless marriage with a cold, bad tempered wife who is a
lesbian.

What can we learn about Bill Clinton's inner life from the Monica-Linda
tapes that we don't already know? Bill's passivity, deceptiveness and
charisma are among his many traits listed earlier but they receive new
dimensions from the words of Monica, the Wounded Stalker and Linda, the
Righteous Snitch. Monica and Linda are both stressed during their
intersection and their insights reflect this anxiety. Bill emerges from
this dialogue as more passive in his relationship with Monica then in his
earlier love affairs with Dolly and Gennifer or in his courtship of Hillary
for that matter. He met Hillary in his twenties and Gennifer in his
thirties. He met Dolly in his teens when he was really quite inhibited in
his relations with girls but later in his twenties and thirties he was not
so passive in his affair with her .

Does passivity in love mean passivity in life or for that matter does
activity in affairs of the heart mean an aggressive career? Of course not
but love is life. Examples muster themselves. Monogamous Truman was at
least as active in love as adulterous Roosevelt. Both were active
Presidents. LBJ was an active President while Bush was a more passive
president though both had affairs.

Bill's deceptions speak in the tapes. His changes of mind

and heart during their affair deceive Monica and perhaps Bill himself
according to the Monica-Linda tape duet. This is illustrative of his
narcissism and superego deficits which affect both his political and sexual
behavior. Bill believes everything he says at the time he says it according
to biographer David Maraniss. Narcissists need instant gratification and
one of the ways to get it is to offer it to your lovers, voters and
friends. This brings us back to the flaws of Bill's superego described in
the section on this topic.

Bill's charisma is elusive. I've already assigned his sex appeal for both
women and men to Bill's genetics with a reference to Elvis but this
discounts his performance. Monica saw Bill as a "a beautiful soul...this
incredible person...a little boy...I fell in love (with the President on)
July 4, l997." Billy Graham, the evangelist says Bill has "a tremendous
personality" that makes the women "go wild." A man whose only meeting with
President Bill was a chance encounter in a country restaurant recalls the
raw emotional power of Bill's intensive listening to him express his
political opinions. Bill wasn't talking; he was listening.